this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Hi I'm a mathematician.
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
I think they're just saying that if you're a multi billionaire and get a 50% net worth fine, you're still a billionaire once it's done.
I'm a mathematician too. They're probably speaking from an intuitive grasp of utility.
While I disagree that "billions is beyond being halved", there is some truth to the idea that numbers can get so big that halving doesn't make much difference. That seems very very counter-intuitive, so I'll try to briefly explain.
Consider (10^10 + 2). That's 10000000000+2. I think it's fair to say that the +2 doesn't make a lot of difference. It's still approximately 10^10.
So then, consider 10^(10^10)×100. That's a huge number, too big to type here, then multiplied by 100. So the result is 100 times bigger than the huge number. But... writing it down we see this:
10^(10^10)×100 = 10^(10^10+2) ≈ 10^(10^10).
So although ×100 does make it one hundred times bigger... that just doesn't really make a lot of difference to a number as big as that one. As numbers get bigger and bigger, they start to take on properties a bit like 'infinity'. Addition stops being important, then multiplication, then for even bigger numbers exponentiation doesn't huge much of an impact either.
Mathematically, I think this is really cool and interesting. But I don't think 1 billion is that big. 10^9 is big enough that +2 doesn't matter much, but not so big that ×2 doesn't matter.
[edit] (I'm struggling to get the nested powers to look right... So hopefully my meaning is clear enough anyway.)
A single billion, when put in terms of money, is enough that - simply invested in GICs and bonds, earning a very, very conservative 1% interest - it would earn you ten million dollars a year in interest alone.
I would challenge you to even come up with a reasonable way to spend ten million dollars a year. By my back of the napkin math you could vacation every single day, living in hotels and eating at fancy restaurants, and still not make a dent in that.
Musk has an estimated net worth of $247 billion. You could fine him 99% of his current wealth, and he would still struggle to spend enough that he wouldn't end up increasing his remaining wealth every year.
And this is why it is ludicrous to believe that ultra-rich people earn their fortune with hard work or good ideas. Being rich generates its own money. Being poor is expensive. There should be no billionaires, for any reason. Such concentrated wealth is very bad.
I would fund multiple forms of art media and have them released for free every year while living on ramen in my leaky apartment
Hello to any billionaires looking for a worthy heir
Now imagine a world where, instead of there being billionaires, everyone had their basic needs met, so artists could afford to focus on creating their art instead of relying on handouts from a capricious god.
But I want to be a capricious god
now I like you, you see the good combinations immediately
Maybe posting a picture where you write it out? I think I understand though.
Interesting concept, thank you!
Have you ever played idle champions of the forgotten realms? At some point you start to get this feeling.
Happens in MMOs too, world of Warcraft was bad with it over the years on and off.
They've reduced the numbers down multiple times so that people start to feel progression again.
I'm not too familiar with WoW, but I think it's a bit different.
In the idle clicker, you quickly get to exponential numbers, so when you're optimizing the party and you have a choice of say, something that doubles your base damage or something, it really feels irrelevant because after all the other multipliers your hero is already dealing 2x10^(102), and going to 4x10^(102) is nothing
Yeah I think that can happen at different scales, and of course MMOs didnt just increase the numbers higher and higher, they added more damage sources per second, per target.
It gets to the point you need a meter and graph to really tell much of a difference with anything, but you won't be able to create enough data points to make a real determinstion.
So the end result I think is the same you are describing. You get a new upgrade and it looks like it will be a substantial difference but you end up not being able to tell.
The game you are talking about, is the exponential increase a feature of the game? It sounds like it goes up very quick from what you described.
Oh yes it's intended, there's even a setting where you can choose between abbreviations or scientific notation, because everyone knows K, M or B, but ain't nobody gonna remember Ovg for "Octovigintillion" (10^87 apparently), much easier to just keep track of the powers.
It's decent fun for what it is and it's f2p, give a spin if you want - https://idlechampions.com/
I think I read it like you did first, that fining him billions would be more than half of his net worth, which is wrong.
But I think they mean that if you have billions, taking away half wouldnt change your life. I'd also say thats wrong for musk though because his money is tied up in companies. If he had to pay a cash fine of a huge amount, that likely would cause discomfort.
division has no power here old man!
They're not talking about Maths. They're talking about wealth.